Toby Harnden was the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC, from 2006 to 2011. Click here for Toby's website. Follow him on Twitter here @tobyharnden and on Facebook here. He is the author of the bestselling book Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story Britain's War in Afghanistan.

Welcome to the world, Samuel Cheney

So Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne have a sixth grandchild. Samuel David Cheney weighed in at 8 lbs, 6 oz. Someone once told me that all babies look like Winston Churchill or Dick Cheney. Well, I confess it was hard to detect a crooked smile on young Samuel.Â

Dick Cheney and Lynne Cheney withÂ their grandson

All was happy and normal. Except, of course, this was no ordinary baby. Samuel is the son of Mary Cheney, 38, and her girlfriend of 15 years Heather Poe.

So in bible-bashing, God-fearing, redneck America there was a big outcry, right? Wrong. Thankfully, there was hardly any fuss at all.

Americans for Truth states that they "cannot celebrate homosexual parenting – which involves intentionally denying a child either a mom or a dad"Â while Ogre contends, dubiously, that Cheney Minimus is "highly likely (more than 40% more likely than the general public) that he will be subject to child abuse".

But in general the reaction has been a shrug and a broad recognition that members of the extended Cheney family are entitled to live their lives as they wish.

The Cheneys didn't have to pose for that picture. They did so partly, of course, to satisfy what would inevitably be some media interest.

But they also did it because they love and support their daughter and would not let narrow political considerations or fear of upsetting the Republican "base" (which is much more tolerant and diverse than people suppose) stand in the way of that.

Mary Cheney herself when she said: "This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child."

In December, President George W. Bush said: "The vice president took me aside and gave me the good news. He and his wife, Lynne, are very happy for Mary," Bush said. "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her."

He had just been confronted with a 2005 quote when he'd said: "I believe children can receive love from gay couples but the ideal is – and studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman."

Mary Cheney said subsequently that "every piece of remotely responsible research" had shown "no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents".

So Mary Cheney and Bush disagree on that issue. But it is worth noting that Bush has never sought to deny people like Mary Cheney the chance to have a baby.

He seems to think, on this issue at least, that the less government control over what happens inside people's houses or in people's private lives the better.